Hall stuns GTown; Willard’s loquacious postgame

After Seton Hall finished off an impressive 67-57 win at Georgetown, Kevin Willard engaged in another epic postgame radio interview with Gary Cohen and Dave Popkin.

Willard said “I had tears in my eyes” at the sight of Eugene Teague in the starting lineup, said his goal is to go 11-7 in the conference and criticized the Big East’s scheduling in a defense of St. John’s. He even kept talking after Cohen tried to sign off, delivering one final gem (see below).

Great game for the Pirates, especially Teague (10 points, 9 boards) and Fuquan Edwin (24 points, became the program’s career steals leader). The postgame was just as good. Here are the highlights:

“What a difference, having Eugene out there. Where it’s big is six offensive rebounds. Fuquan had five steals. That’s 11 possessions we got that we weren’t getting (with them hurt).”

I told the guys, I really expected to win this game…we’re starting to heal—we’re not there yet, Eugene is not even close to the player he was three weeks ago. But Aaron Geramipoor gave us great minutes . . . We had a great week of preparation. Tough for them; they had to play at Xavier Wednesday and we had a week to prepare. I really thought every played a solid all-around game.

On Edwin: I told them at halftime, you guys have to trust each other. I trust you right now. Fuquan, I’m playing you 36 minutes and you’re not the Fuquan you were before but I trust that you are becoming that. You’re a great player.”

On his team’s defense: “In the first half they got four easy buckets off our bad offense. Us not turning the ball over helped out our defense in the second half. We made them work a little bit in the half-court (defending) even though we didn’t always convert.”

“We had been improving before we got hurt on defense. I don’t know that we’ll ever be a great defensive team, but our goal is to be a middle-of-the-pack defensive team.”

When asked the significance of winning at GTown for the first time in 11 years: “We didn’t want to go 1-4. Even though I wasn’t worried if we went 1-4, but you don’t want to. I don’t think we had beaten UConn for 12 years before two years ago. So that doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is being 2-3 and 2-1 on the road. My goal is to try to win four road games this year and seven home games. That would make us 11-7.”

On Gibbs fading at the line late: “The last three minutes Jaren was supposed to be in the game, not Sterling. Sterling was tired, you could tell. We didn’t have another stoppage of play. Jaren was playing really well. I thought Brandon had a great game defensively and changed things for us defensively in the second half . . . Sterling, I want the ball in his hands (late). He’s an 80 percent free-throw shooter. We’ll go back this week and shoot a thousand free throws and get him going.”

Asked about facing 0-5 St. John’s next: “Sometimes the schedule dictates in league play when you get on a run and when you don’t get on a run. St. John’s, they’ve had a difficult run.”

“That’s something the league needs to get a grip on. You can’t have someone coming from Nebraska back to New York and then playing one day after (against) someone who had six days off. The league is tremendous and the league is great, but we’ve got to sit down this summer, for the betterment of the league you can’t do that to teams.”

“People say they’re 0-5. But in games where they had a chance on their home court to win, you’re tired because you had to travel . . . We love Fox, the promotion is great, we’re in a great league but we need to make sure everyone has a good chance.”

After Gary Cohen tried to sign off the interview . . .

“We said some prayers and the big fella looked great. I’m an emotional guy and to see him in that starting lineup, I had tears in my eyes. You sit back and think maybe he’s not going to play again. To see him out there playing as hard as he played to give us 10 and 9 in his first game back is ridiculous.”

About Jerry Carino

Jerry Carino has covered sports for the Gannett New Jersey newspapers since 1996 and has been on the college basketball beat since 2003. A native of Old Bridge, he also teaches journalism at Kean University.

About this Blog

Since its launch in 2006, Hoops Haven has become a staple of the New Jersey basketball community. This is the place to find breaking news, analysis and links about college and high school basketball in the Garden State.

About the Author

Jerry Carino has covered sports for the Gannett New Jersey newspapers since 1996 and has been on the college basketball beat since 2003. A native of Old Bridge, he also teaches journalism at Kean University.Email Jerry.